Summary
Inspired by the real life martial artist Huo Yuanjia 霍元甲, the creator of the Deceptive Fist style (and whose apprentice was in turn the inspiration for Bruce Lee's character in Fist of Fury).
Huo shows up in Beijing to challenge another martial arts master, only to find himself caught up in the Wuxu Coup of 1898 (a conservative backlash against attempted reform).
Trailer
Full Series
Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.
- iQiyi - Heroes *
Mandarin audio, with subtitles in English and other languages.
Note: video didn't play for me in Zen/Firefox browsers, I had to use a Blink/Chromium-based browser. - YT: CCTV - 大侠霍元甲
Mandarin audio, no subtitles in any language.
Legal Stream Finders
- https://nobraincellsleft.github.io/JustWatch-Search/title/ts263589
- https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/heroes-2020
Info
Cast
- Vincent Zhao (a.k. Chiu Man-cheuk) (Fong Sai-Yuk, Once Upon a Time in China IV & V, The Blade)
Opinion
Looking for free, licensed streaming action and martial arts , I came across this on Chinese streaming video site iQiyi. And found that iQiyi offers not only English subtitles but also a complete English-language version of their site (unlike QQ Video in the Future X-Cops post).
Zhao didn't ring a bell at first, but looking him up I now realize he was the main villain in Fong Sai-Yuk, fighting Jet Li.
I've only seen the first episode so far. And so far, it has some impressive fights, and a budget equivalent to every 70s and 80s kung fu flick put together, but comes off a little stale. The good guys are just so gosh darn virtuous.
I've only now seen the trailer which shows Huo fighting a ridiculously CGI-enhanced gwailo baddie, so hopefully it will get a little more lively.
Oh, and while there will apparently be women later in the series, there were none in the first episode.
iQiyi
Now that I've (re)discovered iQiyi, I'll check it out for more action, kung fu, wushu etc. Note that while Heroes is free, not everything on iQiyi is (they push you to buy the "VIP" package). However they do make it fairly easy to find the free stuff.
Side note
When you go full screen in iQiyi, you see an option "Edit subtitle". Holy crap, yes, you can "edit" the subtitles. Or at least, submit your edits for approval.
Screenshots
